Godard vs. Truffaut

Written by Joe D on April 10th, 2008

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There’s a great article by Richard Brody in the New Yorker about the relationship and feud of these two superstars of the New Wave.Check it out if you can. I recently watched Contempt on TCM. It was pan and scan and not a great copy but the stunning power of the film rang through clear as a bell. Godard plays with so many ideas in such a unique way. Fritz Lang is filming The Odyssey for American producer Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli is hired to write the script and they argue about re writing Homer. The purity and immediacy of The Odyssey, the experiential purity is at stake. The American wants to change it, Lang resists, Piccoli tries to talk him into it so he can earn enough to buy an apartment for his wife, Bridgitte Bardot, until he loses her to the American. Then he agrees with Lang. The emotions of the characters in this film are so true, so reminiscent of that first big breakup, your first adult breakup, it’s as if it were written by a modern Homer, a cinematic Homer, Godard.
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The magical prism of Cinema, free of the restraints of Time, takes us back to Capri, 1964 and at the same moment the Hellenic Greece of Odysseus

Here’s an interview with Jean Luc from the time of Contempt.

And here’s a recent quote from Mr. Godard in the New Yorker article “Today I feel rather like an exile in my own land. The land of Cinema.”

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